


so we've been told, and some choose to believe it

by orphan_account



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: (also stan's dumb sense of humor is mentioned because that's soft as hell), (the rest of the losers may or may not exist), Eventual implication of Reddie, Good Parents Maggie & Wentworth Tozier, Sad Bill Denbrough hours, Sonia Kaspbrak can choke on a breadstick, Stan and Richie are OG bffs, They're good because I said so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 11:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21355834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Unfortunately, raising a child doesn't come with a manual.(The one where Maggie and Wentworth Tozier struggle to understand their son.)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	so we've been told, and some choose to believe it

**Author's Note:**

> i really like the rainbow connection don't judge my terrible title name
> 
> (also tw for the use of the f slur!)

Maggie Tozier was young when she first fell pregnant, mid-twenties, still too young (in her opinion) to be raising a child. She and Went hadn’t necessarily tried for a baby, but both were still ecstatic when the news came. They rushed into marriage when Maggie’s father mentioned it, staring down Wentworth with an edge of threat in his tone. Her dress was white and a little too baggy; her mother and her sister worked the night before the ceremony to fix it to her size.

Richard came, and suddenly the weight of the situation seemed to suddenly crash down upon Maggie’s shoulders. Richard would cry and cry, and Went would return home with his wife sobbing on her bed while the baby sat, unchanged and unfed, in his bassinet.

“It’s just them baby blues honey,” Maggie would tell him, on her good days when she would take Richie out in the stroller down the road. Nobody could’ve guessed that she was struggling.

She felt like a bad mother. When the days were bad, and she couldn’t sleep, standing numbly over the bassinet with her hand hovering over Richie’s mouth to be sure that he was still breathing, Maggie would (selfishly) wish that he was a girl. Maggie was well aware that the polite thing to say when her aunties and cousins came to celebrate the news of her pregnancy and asked _would you like a boy or a girl? _was to respond with a kind smile, hand resting on her stomach, and say _I don’t mind as long as it’s healthy_. She went through the motions, pretending it didn’t matter, while secretly running her hands along the pretty dresses that she had worn as a girl, hoping and wishing that she would have a daughter to share them with.

Sometimes, in the brief moments of clarity, she would recognise the fact that she was taking her sons hair and pulling the dark strands together with yellow ribbon, and she would feel her cheeks burn with her embarrassment. Mothers weren’t supposed to dress their sons up in ribbons and frills. But mothers weren’t supposed to leave crying children in the house while they walked down the street to get some peace and quiet, either, but she did that too.

It got better as he grew. She wasn’t quite sure when the _baby blues_ just stopped (part of her wonders if it ever truly stopped at all), but before she knew it, Richie was toddling around the house, grasping her dress between his tiny fist, and babbling an incoherent sentence asking for a peanut butter sandwich.

Maggie would hoist Richie on her hip and bounce him around while he munched on whatever snack she had given him now. “Can you say _mama_, baby? Come on, _mama. Mama._”

But Richie would stubbornly refuse. Even when his first words were spoken (which were _cat_ and _ball_) and he had said _dada_ multiple times on Went’s encouragement, Richie would only respond to Maggie’s plea for him to say _mama_ with a big, playful smile, like he knew exactly what she wanted and still refused to say it.

“That boy is smart,” Maggie commented one day, watching her husband and her son interact on the rug while she watched from the kitchen table with a cup of tea sitting in front of her.

“Of course. He’s a Tozier.”

“No,” Maggie insisted, although she smiled. “No, I mean it. He still refuses to say mama. He knows that I want him to say it.”

Wentworth responded with a shrug. “Then stop trying.”

And she did, and Richie immediately called her mama.

With his stubborn attitude, Maggie was worried that he’d never interact with children his own age. She had sometimes taken Richie to the nearby park and watched as he ran wildly out of control, nudging children down the slides before they were ready and boldly and loudly introducing him to kids who didn’t seem interested in befriending him like he did.

“That son of yours,” One mother, older than Maggie and certainly trying to make her feel young and intimidated, attempting to assert some odd kind of dominance over her. “Does he ever stop moving?”

Maggie watched, feeling exhausted just watching how fast his mouth was moving. “No. No he doesn’t.”

Stanley Uris is Richie’s first ever best friend and Maggie is so happy with this revelation that she nearly takes a photograph of the two boys in the living room just so she won’t ever forget it. She’s glad that Richie is friends with Stan, because Stan is polite and respectful and doesn’t hesitate to rein her wild son in. Even at the proud age of six to Richie’s seven, Stan feels a lot older than he is.

After only a few meetings, Maggie begins to see why they were so compatible. Stanley Uris has an odd sense of humour (the kid was only six; she felt horrible even thinking that). He laughs at jokes he makes by himself that no one else seems to get, but Richie makes it less awkward by laughing alongside him, and even if his laughter sounds forced at first, it quickly becomes so natural and honest that you could believe that he got it.

Maybe it was just a boy thing. Maggie could never truly understand her son.

His second friend, a little boy named Eddie Kaspbrak, comes a year after Stanley Uris. Eddie is kind of like Stanley, except Eddie’s voice always sounds like its on the verge of tears, and he’s so thin that Maggie always seems to worry that he’s not eating enough. He’s _yes Miss Tozier_ and _thank you Miss Tozier_, but it’s not simply politeness like Stan. It’s fear, like he’s worried that she’s going to hit him. She’s never hit Richie, not even when he’s pushing her buttons so much that it would definitely be justified.

Richie is eight when Maggie notices the way he looks at Eddie Kaspbrak. It’s a hot day, and she bought a kiddie pool because she knows nobody who has a full sized pool, and she’s too tired to take herself and the boys to Derry’s public pool. She’s squished in the pool beside Richie and Stan, and opposite her is Eddie. She feels odd, sitting in the kiddie pool and taking up so much space, but she’s hot and selfish. Her sunglasses shield her eyes from both the sun and the boys; she’s so still and so quiet that you could almost believe she was asleep.

Her son stares closely at Eddie while Eddie talks about something with Stan. There’s a look of longing that makes her heart stop and thoughts run through her head. He’s just a kid, this isn’t love, right? There’s no way that he feels like _that _for Eddie. And then Richie fills his mouth with lemonade and spits it on Stan, and then they all go inside, and Maggie forgets her worries.

When Richie is ten, his little group of friends extends itself to engulf one more lonely kid. This time it’s William Denbrough, but that name is immediately dropped in favour of _Billy_. Billy Denbrough is so unlike Richie and his other friends. He’s calm and rational, and as soon as he comes into the picture, Richie stops being the leader and Billy takes over the role. It wasn’t in any act of malice. Billy Denbrough was just too _leaderish_ and everyone just looks up to him.

It’s Richie’s almost eleventh birthday (it was called the almost eleventh birthday because the Tozier were going down for one of Maggie’s cousins weddings on the weekend of his birthday), and the four boys are piled in the living room watching horror films that Went had loaned for them, although Maggie, in her endless worry that Richie would end up spending weeks sharing a bed with them afterwards, had made her husband promise to only borrow slightly-scary movies, and Went had agreed.

There had been cake and pizza, and while Maggie sits in the kitchen washing the plates, she hears the phone ring, and for the first time since Eddie Kaspbrak had been part of Richie’s friend group, she meets Sonia Kaspbrak.

First impressions, despite her catholic upbringing to be kind and unjudgmental, are bad. Maggie hears Sonia’s grating voice, squeaking incoherently through the speaker at first, before she finally understands what the other woman is trying desperately to tell her.

_“We have _church _tomorrow morning! How is my darling Eddie going to make it home in time?!”_

“It’s fine, Mrs Kaspbrak; I’ll make sure he gets home in plenty of time-“

_“Put him on the phone!”_

Maggie glances over her shoulder to the living room. Stan is asleep on the floor, with Eddie not too far behind, watching bleary as Richie and Bill throw popcorn over his head at each other. “They’re having fun, Mrs Kaspbrak. Now, I can _assure _you-“

_“Put him on the phone, now!”_

Maggie can only sigh, mumble something halfway affirmation, before leaving the phone on the counter, making her way into the living room, and motioning for Eddie to follow. He looks worried and confused, and Maggie can see his thoughts running though his head.

“You’re not in trouble,” She assures him when he’s out of earshot of Richie and Bill, and holds the phone out for Eddie to take. “Your mom wants to talk to you.”

She makes a point not to listen into Eddie’s conversation, but she can’t help but notice the way his voice rises and the signature tears start to sound through his _yes mommy_’s and _no mommy_’s. Sonia must have hung up first, because when the kitchen goes silent, Maggie turns, and watches as little Eddie Kaspbrak struggles to hold his tears back.

Her mother instincts kick in, and she bends to his level and wraps him in a warm hug. “It’s alright,” She soothes in the soft voice that she usually reserves for Richie, but she could share it with Eddie. “It’s alright honey – what did your mom say?”

“That I won’t ever get so hang out with Richie again after tonight.”

Maggie frowns, but then she smiles and offers Eddie a wink. “Don’t worry – Richie wouldn’t let you go that easily.”

It’s partly a joke, but as the words spill from her mouth, Maggie understands the reality of what she had just said.

Eddie gives her a little smile in return, and when his tears are mostly dry, she escorts Eddie back into the living room and softly (as to not wake Stan), tells the three remaining boys to go to sleep. She bends down to press a goodnight kiss to Richie’s head, and notices again the way he stares, upset and hurt, by the trails of tears on Eddie’s cheeks.

When he was younger, Richie would do this thing when he was sad. He’d curl up next to Maggie, wherever she was - couch, bed, patio; it didn’t matter. He’d lay his head against her side and she would stay quiet and still until he would say, in a tiny voice, _can you hug me mama?_

Of course, he was much too old for that now, and Maggie had begun to believe that she’d ever witness it again, when Richie surprises her by revisiting the old habit. The day after his birthday, after Eddie and Stan and Bill had all returned home, he had sat next to her on her bed while she read and requested a hug.

“Eddie told me what his mom said. Could she really do that?”

Maggie shrugs, her son firmly to her chest and her chin resting atop his head. “She could; she is his mother.”

Richie’s breathing hitches, like he’s about to cry, but slowly he lets out a breath he was hold and waits a moment before answering. “Can Eddie still come over? Even if his mom says that he can’t, I mean.”

Maggie thinks for a moment. Sonia Kaspbrak was loud and controlling, and Eddie had seemed to grow comfortable in her house. She makes her decision. “Of course. Don’t worry honey, mom’s are great at covering for other people.”

The next time Richie comes back to the old habit is the day Georgie Denbrough dies. Maggie herself was horrified at the news. The death had been violent, so much, in fact, that she had sat in the bathroom floor and gagged over a toilet when she first heard the details off a strangely detached Zack Denbrough. She had met the vibrant young boy when she would visit Sharon, who had become something like a friend in the three years Maggie had known the elder Denbrough boy. Georgie was smiles and sweetness, radiating a sense of childlike glee that Maggie feels guilty she may have missed with her own son. Richie had known Georgie more than she had, and the news had hit him hard.

Bill and Stan hadn’t been over as much, but Eddie continued to come. As the year drags on, Stan starts visiting once again (the Uris’ had been too worried about the killer who was still at large to let their son go out of the house for a long time), and soon after Stan, Bill starts to come over. More than he used to, and Maggie initially wasn’t worried. Not until Bill’s stutter got worse and worse and his face scrunched up with anger every time he tried and failed to force out a full conversation and his eyes grew dark and his thin, lanky body continued to get thinner and thinner – Maggie tried so hard to steer away from Bill’s decline. It was the grief, she reasoned. He’ll get better with time.

Richie’s summer came and Maggie notices the changes in his behaviour. He’s frustrated and angry more and more, and he adamantly refuses to tell she or Went where he’s been. She’s worried, at first, and then Went rolls his eyes.

“He’s a thirteen year old boy, Maggie. He’s growing up.”

_Growing up_. That was a word she never wanted to hear.

So she does as her husband tells her and gives him space, growing more and more worried about him each day until the day he shows up to the house, elbows and knees scraped, and cries into his folded arms while Maggie tries to clean the blood off his skin.

“I’m sorry,” Is all he repeats, sobbing too loudly for much more to be heard.

“What are you sorry for honey?” Maggie asks, her quiet mom voice on. Richie lifts his head, his huge glasses sitting angled upon his nose and eyes red from crying.

“T-The arcade, and Bowers and- and – Eddie and -Mom, I’m so sorry.”

She cradles his head on her chest and runs her hands though his hair. He isn’t making sense, but through his crying she can hear him say the word _fag_ and the words _sorry sorry sorry_. She freezes, her dread pooling back into her veins as she struggles to form a cohesive connection between his words.

Mothers are certainly more perceptive than children realise, Maggie decides. She thinks back to all the little looks Richie has given Eddie since they were children, the desperation in his voice when he asked if Eddie could still come over, and she wishes, for his sake, that she’s wrong.

She doesn’t know what she’ll do if she’s right.

**Author's Note:**

> okay i admit the ending sorta makes it sound like maggie's homophobic but shes not okay shes just a worried mother worrying about her closeted gay son :(
> 
> anyway look out for the next chapter where we change povs to wentworth tozier, dad of the year


End file.
